Hot Topics:

Longmont's Union and McIntosh reservoirs as full as they need to be

By Scott Rochat Longmont Times-Call

Posted:
07/14/2013 05:15:42 PM MDT

Updated:
07/15/2013 12:06:42 PM MDT

John Percarpio of Longmont helps his dog Max into his boat at Union Reservoir on Saturday morning. The reservoir is about as full as it will get this summer, but city officials expect to have full boating and swimming seasons.
(LEWIS GEYER)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Times-Call's series Take Two revisits people we have written about in the past year. Take Two stories will run on Mondays.

LONGMONT -- The state of the Union is nice and deep.

It's been two months since Longmont began refilling Union Reservoir, taking advantage of a snowy April that led to strong runoffs in May. The water in the popular recreational lake has now hit 10,500 acre-feet, 500 more than the city expected to see.

"It's actually looking pretty good this year," said Ken Huson, the city's water resources administrator.

When full, Union holds 12,800 acre-feet of water. But full is a word that hasn't been used for a while.

As late as March, the reservoir was down to 5,700 acre-feet, less than half its capacity, and there were questions as to whether the boating and swimming season might be narrowed.

But in April, Longmont got 20 inches of snow. The mountains got even more, rescuing what had been a disastrous snowpack. And in May, when Longmont began to claim its share of the St. Vrain, water was flowing in fast enough to add 120 acre-feet per day.

By now, Union isn't likely to add much more. But what it has is more than enough, Huson said.

"From a recreational standpoint, this is about the ideal level," he said. "You have a beach. When it's completely full, you don't have much room to stretch your legs."

Union's not the only beneficiary of the watery bounty. McIntosh Lake, often perilously dry since last summer's drought, has been recharging lately from the city's Colorado-Big Thompson water (water sent from the Western Slope to the Front Range and the plains) and should soon have about three-quarters of its 2,460 acre-feet filled.

The water levels should hold until at least September, Huson says, when water users on the South Platte begin to tap Union. So no boarded-up boat ramps or shortened seasons, even if the heat holds for a while.

"Really, for as dry as it's been, the advantage of the moisture we got in April is ongoing," Huson said.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story